Putin Says Russia Must Remain “Space and Nuclear” Power As Yuri Gagarin’s Flight Celebrates 60 Years

Russia should continue to be a great power in space exploration, said the president on Monday Vladimir Putin, on the occasion of the 60th anniversary of the first flight into space of a human being, carried out by the Soviet cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin.

“In the XXI century, Russia it must maintain its status as a nuclear and space power ”, he said in a videoconference, calling for the establishment of a strategy on “at least 10 years” of a sector that has been in decline for several years.

He also called for a strategy that also extends to telecommunications, transportation, basic research, health and education.

For many critics, Russia For years it privileged the development of new weapons – such as hypersonic missiles – leaving ground in the space field.

In fact, the sector has been affected by aging infrastructure and corruption.

“The government must prepare and approve a document that contains clear measures to achieve the priorities”added Putin.

Saluting the historic success of Yuri Gagarin, I consider that “It will always be a great pride that it was our country that opened the way to the universe.”

Vladimir Putin holds a meeting on the development of the country’s space industry in Engels on April 12, 2021. (Photo by Alexey DRUZHININ / SPUTNIK / AFP). (ALEXEY DRUZHININ /)

Putin He spoke after visiting a monument built at the cosmonaut’s landing site in Engels, 700 kilometers southeast of Moscow.

On April 12, 1961 at 9:07 a.m. Moscow time, Yuri Gagarin began the flight with a phrase that has gone down in history. “Here we go!” He said before taking off aboard a Vostok spacecraft from the then top-secret Baikonur cosmodrome in the Soviet republic of Kazakhstan.

The flight lasted 108 minutes, the time it took to complete an orbit around Earth and land on the Russian steppe.

The small Vostok capsule in which the cosmonaut descended under extreme conditions will be exhibited at the Museum of Space Conquest in Moscow, on the occasion of an exhibition called “First” that will open on Tuesday.

In addition to this capsule, the museum will display personal effects from Yuri Gagarin dating from his childhood or his feat, such as the key he used to start the engines of the ship or the ejection seat with which he left the ship at 7,000 meters above sea level.

A man walks past a banner with a picture of Soviet cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin in Moscow on April 12, 2021 (Photo by Kirill KUDRYAVTSEV / AFP). (KIRILL KUDRYAVTSEV /)

Unifying symbol of the russians

“It is perhaps the only surname that everyone knows in Russia, from the ages of four to 80 and over. The feat of Gagarin is something like what unifies Russia”, Viacheslav Klimentov, deputy director of research at the Museum of Space Conquest, told AFP.

With a congratulatory message to the employees of the Russian space sector, its director Dmitri Rogozin assured on his side that Russia “remembers the past” but that “it is also focused on the future”, and promised “very important changes” soon.

Rogozin laid flowers on the walls of the Kremlin, where Yuri Gagarin and the father of the Soviet space program, Sergei Korolev, rest.

On Sunday, Rogozin pointed out in an interview with Russian television that Moscow had the ambition to send cosmonauts to the Moon by 2030, despite having “ten times less budget than NASA”, American.

In 1957, the Soviet Union was already the first country to put a satellite, the famous Sputnik, into orbit, but Gagarin’s space trip became a symbol of the USSR’s dominance over the United States in this area.

Y Yuri Gagarin, who died in 1968, has become the face and symbol of space exploration.

A Soyuz rocket, decorated for the occasion with the profile of Gagarin, took off on Friday from Baikonur to the International Space Station (ISS) with two Russians and an American.

This Monday, Russian cosmonauts on the ISS joined in the celebration for Gagarin’s milestone and saluted “108 legendary minutes, turned into an example of heroism,” said one of them, Oleg Novitski.

But Russia’s halo of space glory has faded. Soyuz rockets remain trustworthy and Russia is an inescapable player in the space industry, but the country is struggling to innovate and has struggled in recent years, with several failed launches.

Last year, Russia lost its 10-year monopoly on flights to the ISS and is now competing with the private US company SpaceX.

A new reality that could generate large revenue losses for the Russian space agency Roscosmos, although its boss, Dmitri Rogozin, boasts of future major projects, from the construction of a lunar station with China or a new spacecraft.